James Earl Jones died just over a week ago. It has taken me that long to address his passing. His death haunts me. I’m still in the process of grasping why it hurts me so much. Others mourn his passing, but this is different. Everyone knows things about his talent that will be missed.

Nearly everyone has heard Jones’ baritone voice, announcing CNN.

Jones has won two Emmys, a Grammy, three Tony Awards, and an Honorary Academy Award. The world will miss him on stage, TV, and in movies.

What fascinates me about Jones are the parallels between the two of us. We both had significant problems in life. I faced two major issues during my journey down the yellow brick road of my life. The first problem was moving from Pennsauken, NJ, near the end of elementary school. I was an above-average student at Pennsauken. My father couldn’t go to college due to WWII. When he returned home, the company where he worked gave him a promotion, which meant the family moved to Pittsburgh.

When my father looked for a home in Pittsburgh, he asked a real estate agent about the best school system in the area. The agent told him Mt. Lebanon. It was also the 19th-best school system in the country and the wealthiest community in Western Pennsylvania. I learned two things while at Mt. Lebanon: I was dumb and poor in a golden ghetto. It took me several decades to correct that mindset.

The second problem that I faced was dancing with death, which I successfully did twice. One dance was due to falling off a ladder, resulting in a subdural hematoma, which is a medical term for internal bleeding in the brain. The same year, I had prostate cancer that had metastasized beyond the prostate. Fortunately, I led death on both dances.

Beyond issues of racism, Jones stuttered a great deal as a young child. It was so bad that he rarely spoke, especially in school. A high school English teacher had his students write a poem. Listen to Jones recall his teacher’s caring for him. The teacher challenged him to recite his poem Ode to Grapefruit in front of the class. The teacher’s technique was interesting. He told Jones that the poem was excellent. However, he wanted Jones to recite the poem before the class. In that way, the teacher was sure it wasn’t plagiarized.

The other parallels I noticed when I watched Field of Dreams. Over the decades since the movie was released in 1989, I have watched that movie many times. I have taken my three children to visit the Field of Dreams. Each time, I see more and more parallels between Jones and me.

Watch Jones as the writer, Terrence Mann, talks to Ray Kinsella. It is a father attempting to help the next generation grasp reality.

Field of Dreams meant a great deal to me when I was younger, especially before I discovered my family in Myanmar. By sheer happenstance, I found my two children, three granddaughters, and my great-granddaughter a decade ago. Jones discovered his family in a cornfield in Iowa. The parallels are obvious to me now, and it haunts me.